ye know, and the way ye know." Thomas answered him, "Lord, we know not whither thou goest, and how can we know the way ?" Jesus answered, "I am the way." If they knew Jesus they certainly knew the way to God and heaven. "If ye had known me," said Jesus again to his disciples, "ye would have known the Father also. And from henceforth ye know him and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us." Jesus, in answer to this request, lets him know that he had already, shewed them the Father. "Jesus said unto him, have I been so long with thee, and hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?"

The Lord's way, in his providence, is often hid from our eyes. He passeth by us, and we perceive him not, because his operations are hidden under the veil of second causes. Every year we are witnesses to a thousand operations of the Spirit, while his agency is unobserved. When the desolations of winter are exchanged for the cheering verdure of spring, it is by the Spirit of God that the face of the earth is renewed. When we read of the mighty exploits of Cyrus, king of Persia, at a time when he knew neither God nor his Spirit, he was the Lord's anointed. These noble qualities which made him the delight of mankind, were the gifts of the Spirit. When

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your souls are possessed with a deep concern about your salvation, and your consciences deeply pierced with a sense of your sins, the Spirit of God is operating upon your minds. Why then should you think that he cannot exert his sanctifying influence in ways not distinctly perceived by those on whom he acts? Must the kingdom of God always come with observation? "Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel the Saviour," and thou hast good reasons for hiding thyself as well in works of grace as in other works of providence!

If no man with safety could believe on Christ without feeling sensible operations of the Spirit, where would be the glory of the word of God as a sufficient and complete rule of christian practice? We could not trust in it, without sensible signs to confirm our belief. Abraham asked a sign from God, but his faith was not suspended upon it. The word of God was a sufficient and sure ground. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but believed in hope agains hope, because God had spoken in his holiness.

It is, no doubt, exceeding desirable to know with certainty, that your faith is wrought in you by the power of the Spirit. But you ought not to complain that God does not bestow all his favors at once. The Ephesian converts believed when they heard the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation; and af

ter they believed, they were sealed with the Holy Spirit, the earnest of their inheritance.. Christ encourages us to pray for the Spirit. "If even ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him!" Our Lord surely does not mean that we must pray for the Spirit, without receiving the Spirit as a spirit of faith to enable us to pray, Rom. viii. 26. But we are enjoined by him to pray for the Spirit, because God giveth more grace to them who are already partakers of his grace. When, by the influence of the Spirit, we pray for the Spirit, God will communicate more influences, and make us sensible of his powerful working on our hearts.

4. Beware of losing any impressions which you have received of the importance of salvation. When men, awakened to a sense of the one thing needful, and convinced that without Christ they must perish, suffer the business or the pleasures of the world to steal away their hearts from thoughts of infinite importance to their souls, they suffer themselves to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, they impose silence upon their own consciences, they resist the Holy Spirit, by whose agency their consciences are awakened, and what if they should quench the Spirit, and provoke him to say, "They are joined to their idols, let them alone."

Some men will tell you that religious impressions are dangerous to your peace, and even to your understandings. Some have made themselves unhappy, and others have lost their reason, by indulging gloomy thoughts about an eternal state; and therefore it is your wisdom, and your duty, to bend your thoughts into another direction. Why should you venture any further into the wide sea, than you can be sure of returning safe, if a storm should rise?

I confess some have brought reproach upon religion by the unwise indulgence of corroding thoughts suggested by some of its doctrines. Is religion to be blamed on that account? Men's concern about their secular interest has a thousand times filled their days with dissatisfaction, or deprived them of their reason, for once that religion, misunderstood through ignorance and folly, has produced these miserable effects. We call upon you to be duly concerned about your eternal interests, to think of the terrors of that state of misery which is prepared for the wicked, and to be deeply sensible of your own wretchedness, if you are still in a state of sin and misery. Can any thing be more reasonable? Can any thing be more unreasonable, than to allege that men should build their happiness and comfort upon self ignorance, upon inconsideration and error? Such foundations of peace are but the baseless fabric of a vision, which must vanish in a moment.

If a man is dangerously sick, is it an act of friendship, or of enmity, to persuade him that he is well, or that his sickness is not of such consequence as to render it necessary to call the physician? If a man is condemned to death, is it a kindness to him to draw away his thoughts from his condition, when it is possible that a pardon might be obtained? You may think about your future state or not as you please, but undoubedly you are hastening to it. "Thus saith the Lord your God, Consider your ways," and who shall dare to say, Consider them not.

We do not teach doctrine that ought to inspire men with despondency. We tell them that they are condemned by the law, but we tell them at the same time that there is forgiveness with God. We indeed say, that believers in Christ only share in this forgiveness, but we likewise say, that all men are authorized to believe on Christ, and that however unable they are of themselves to believe, there is strength for them in Christ Jesus, who is "exalted a Prince and Saviour to give repentance and remission of sins" to men.

We warn men to beware of laying aside their enquiries after salvation till it is obtained, but we are far from advising them to continue under the malignant influence of desponding apprehensions. We call upon them to receive and rest upon Christ, but we warn them against resting in any thing but Christ.

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